“There’s a much prettier girl in this very place, if she did not stick her elbows out so sadly, as she walks, and put her heels on the ground before her toes. And if she had not got—well, not quite green eyes.”
“Somebody else has green eyes, I should say, if they were not as blue as heaven. Sally Chalker? Why, I would not touch her with a pair of tongs. And if I did, Sam Henderson would take the poker to me.”
“Oh, Kit, can you assure me, upon your word of honour, that there is nothing between you and Miss Chalker?”
“No, I can’t. Because there is the whole world between us, and what is more than ten times the whole world to me, a certain little Kitty, who has no fault whatever—except that she is desperately jealous.”
“Jealous indeed! You must never think that. I hope I have a little too much faith in you,” she said, as she came and coaxed me with her hand, making me tremble with her love and loveliness.
But I said, “Confess, or I will never let you go;” and she looked up and laughed, and whispered,—
“Well then, perhaps—but only ever such a wee bit.”
Miss Chalker’s ears must have tingled after that; for I called her a vulgar and common-place girl—which was not at all true—and a showy dressy thing, and I know not what, until Kitty came warmly to the rescue; for she seemed to like her very greatly, all of a sudden, and found out that she walked quite gracefully. Then I took the hateful Bradshaw, and tied a flat stone in it, and flung it over the tops of the trees into the Mole. And when we went in, as the dinner-bell rang—for Miss Parslow kept fashionable hours now—that good lady looked very knowing, and asked with a smile which was meant to be facetious, whether I had seen Miss Chalker lately.
“I saw her sticking her elbows out down the street, and putting her heels to the ground before her toes,” I answered; and true enough it was, though I had never observed those little truths before. Miss Parslow stared, and Kitty gave me such a glance, that I resolved to have honourable amends, or do worse.
“You won’t have much more chance of running down our local belles,” said my aunt, as she handed me a letter; “Mr. Henderson passed in his dog-cart just now, to see the young lady who does such dreadful things, and he kindly brought this letter from your uncle to me. He seems in a great hurry; how unreasonable men are! I think he might have come and paid his respects to Miss Fairthorn, even if he did not think me worthy of that honour. Read it aloud. He is a diamond, no doubt; but I think he should be treated as the Koh-i-noor has been.”